Monday, November 10, 2008

Justice is blind, as if it were recently sighted and swept briskly to stumbling with swings at piƱatas. The freshly aimless find balance in crashing about whilst the faith of the people is sputtering out. Control cannot change all the things that we are in that perfect illusion forever afar.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Law is meaningless
when it does not apply to
those enforcing it.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Haiku for my bum bear

Thrashing and tearing
a blunderous black bear-ing
trash turned into treats.

Wobbles and pitches
to follow the garbage and
drink down drain ditches.

The bear has no dread,
so full from the spread left spread
all across the yard.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Human

Hypocrite, yes but not what it seems
Hypocritical, but not an illuminative digression
It isn't a mark on remarkable difference
It won't split the chord on discordant dull harmony

It is all mired there, though it is not far from here
It pervades all there is, in this defenseless mess
In euphonic similarity, it's all that I blame
It isn't the awful, the sinful, the rest
It's everyone here, one murderous blink

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The Infamous Stringdusters

...what bluegrass would sound like if everyone practiced more

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Red

A new album, thanks Rivers. Rifling through these tracks as they roll by time after time, I am helpless to stop enjoying it more and more. This adjustment period for a Weezer album has become a very familiar curve. Of course it doesn't do anything to help mitigate the effects of such a thing. Right off I'm not sure if the album delivers, there are gems but I'm not really ready to enjoy it. A few times later all the choruses are in my head and starting to take over. The immediately insulting nature of such a bridge as is sandwiched in the myriad of styles of "I Am The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" makes me feel like I've just been tricked but I want it again. Again I've been forced to comply with what Rivers wants me to like but that feeling of unrest is no where to be found when I reach for it.

A cat named Stevens found a faith he could believe in? Fabulous.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A Gift...

Cremation: become a pollutant that will be cherished for generations.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

The End

Rapid pulse gets stronger, open capillaries bring power to the machine
Chills crawl through hands riding calming steel
Breath comes more quickly now, driving deep but never satisfying
Alert and anger as the symphony of panic sets in
Sharp resolve and action, a moment of fleeting confidence
The balance of equations, the remainder of energy in unrest
The illusion of resolution operating in confusion masquerades as the end

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Safety Dance - Road Edition

A curious query crossed my mind as I traversed a now much longer interstate trip than in recent times. Pretending as though there is a choice, amongst the dangers of the open road, which poses more of a threat, vehicles in the hands of the police, a drunk or an idiot? The police are out enforcing rigorous preemptive law to ensure people are more than adequately punished before they commit a crime to drive revenue to drive more per capita traffic units to drive more revenue. Now don't confuse the intent of this particular musing. There are probably a solid 10% of the police force that focuses on actual crime, but only in a very reactive state. This is not unforeseeable as the actual workforce is tied up fining citizens and ensuring they travel at 35mph as opposed to 37mph. A noble task to be sure, though I do wonder about it's effectiveness. The drunk and the idiot are sharing similar ground. An idiot is always more dangerous than a drunk on the road, but a drunken idiot obviously reigns supreme. Often, it is very hard to distinguish between these two on the open road.

My curiosity comes from the similarity of these three groups in their interactions with the road system. They each serve only their own interests but don't openly admit it. All three will tell you they are not a threat. All three cause traffic disruptions. All three ignore the laws and do as they please. The police will say the drunks are the problem, the drunks will say the police are the problem, and of course the idiots say everyone and everything else is the problem provided it is not them.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Odd Couple - Gnarls Barkley

Thirteen high energy tracks from the duo wearing aliases of Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse. Both joined with a deep list of significant past achievements, and it shows. This is the second release from Gnarls Barkley and displays the appropriate amount of growth I've come to expect from the top tier of today's performing and recording artists.

Although the album is only 39 minutes, it will not leave you wanting and you'll find yourself coming back for more faster than usual. The album art related updates to their website are definitely worth checking out, very smooth and creative.

That's all for now,
The Letter J

Friday, February 29, 2008

A Common Power Struggle

We know the machines have to get smarter, the goal is to be always moving forward, adding more value, cutting costs, getting more and getting it faster. Just to discuss briefly, the first school of thought represented is that of Cisco, related by John Chambers (CEO). A person can look at things from a network hardware point of view, watching the development of network hardware and observe that as time goes on, applications move into switches and network hardware. They become network services and are then expected on the hardware, such as a firewall. This assimilation brings with it many benefits which are blood on the lips of a thirsty greenback seekers who seek to find a model and ride it until the money stops flowing. You need only see the toilet paper roll/iPod dock to know what I am talking about. From this perspective, if some applications moving to network hardware is good, more would be even better, right? Cisco's latest marketing materials and corporate direction is towards very 'smart' hardware that can do amazing things for an industry seeking virtualization. I have mentioned Cisco, but make no mistake, this is not a one horse show. Many other companies are readying for the same vision.

The idea, non-technically, is to make all of the resources in a data center flexible, so that where you need the power is where it goes. Machines that have special abilities being used for what they are most effective at performing. A most exciting concept is utilizing processor power or memory from other servers that are not running that specific application. The systems for this are often proprietary, expensive, and a massive undertaking. In addition to the high starting cost, the distinct possibility of high ongoing costs as a result of proprietary hardware/software looms over this concept to the point that I wouldn't expect the market to take to it quickly, if at all.

The other side of the house would comment that they've observed increased processing power in even the smallest 'end' devices. This exponential growth in power and subsequently power/cost leads to the conclusion that the network should remain as it is, the link between devices as opposed to replacements for them.

Where the line will be drawn is uncertain, although my wager would not be with the smart network crowd, it seems more likely we'll see a compromise than either vision capturing the majority.

The Letter J

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Punch Brothers - Punch

Released Tuesday February 26th, 2008.

Finally the next thing has arrived to dominate my obsession. Such as it is at my level of affective domain for music, it can and by definition must consume me.

The CD contains 8 tracks of original material, half written as a group, half by Chris Thile alone. What you should expect is that it is the most amazing thing I've heard to date, what you won't expect is how exactly it is that good. A 3:34 opener that was used as an early single. The next 42 minutes were composed by Chris Thile in a 4 Movement dream called The Blind Leaving The Blind. They wrap the modest length (56 minutes) 8 track album up with 3 more outstanding band compositions.

-Background-
With my mind fresh with ideas from Oliver Sacks, I wonder about what it is that makes something sound good to someone and the amount of power it is subsequently given over the mind and body. It seems that at a rudimentary level that a synthetic series of tones in intervals could be played that would please a human, but we all know that is not entirely the case. I believe that the complexity and variability is due to the close relationship of music to our language processors, not of spoken word but of music language built from experience and environment much like the dialect of spoken language is built.

Back to the topic at hand, it was not immediately clear to me what I liked about Punch. It feels like it accesses so many of my interests in music all at once. It is brimming with technical excellence, compositional complexity and honest beauty that satisfies in a way that I will spend months adjusting to.

The Letter J

p.s.
Dear Punch Brothers,
Go Punch Brothers!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Music Statistics with QlikView

QlikView is a product/suite that is used for clever presentation of data in clickable formats for people who like pictures to explain their data as opposed to actual data. For those who absolutely love seeing their metrics and KPI's as inappropriate "speed gauge" style indicators, this product has it down. The data is loaded from your desired datasource into a local file which greatly reduces the rendering time while making the solution a lot less "on-demand" than I prefer. Alas, it is in use and the people have embraced it.

In addition to the business application, there is a much more interesting section of data loaded on their website connected to MediaGuide to provide music information. Slightly limited, but all things considered, pretty cool.

http://demo.qlikview.com/QlikView/AJAX/MusiqTracker/

The Letter J